Close Readings

Our pioneering podcast subscription: two contributors explore an area of literature through a selection of key works, providing an introductory grounding like no other. Listen to extracts from each episodes, and some full free episodes, here.

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Modern-ish Poets: Elizabeth Bishop

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford, 29 October 2024

14 November 2017 · 11mins

Mark and Seamus look at the life and work of Elizabeth Bishop, the east-coast American poet who enjoyed a limited audience, and published relatively little, in her lifetime, but whose reputation has grown enormously since her death.

Modern-ish Poets: W.H. Auden

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford, 29 October 2024

30 August 2017 · 10mins

Mark and Seamus discuss life and work of W. H. Auden, from the influence of his parents and his political development, to how his poetry emerged from a meeting of English tradition with high modernism, and its formal response to the fractured nature of his times.

Modern-ish Poets: Philip Larkin

Seamus Perry and Mark Ford, 29 October 2024

11 May 2017 · 09mins

In their first episode together, recorded in 2017, Mark Ford and Seamus Perry looked at the life and work of Philip Larkin, a poet much written about in the archive of the London Review of Books.